How The Death Star Wiped Out The Ewoks After All
The Ewoks played a huge part in the defeat of the Empire during the Battle of Endor. Thanks to Wicket the Ewok, the Rebellion joined forces with the Ewok tribe and defeated the Imperial forces on Endor while trying to disable the second Death Star’s shield generator. After the destruction of the second Death Star, Luke, Leia, Chewie, Han, and the rest of the Rebels celebrated their victory with the Ewoks.
Even though we saw the Ewoks celebrating at the end of Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, Purdue’s Planetary researcher Dave Minton says that the Ewoks are all dead thanks to the huge impact from the second Death Star. Due to the forest moon of Endor being to close to the second Death Star, the forest moon suffered from all the falling debris, crashing over the planet surface.
Minton explains how the falling debris from the second Death Star is so large that it would be like a meteor falling. All these colossal falling debris would destroy all living organism on impact, which means all the Ewoks are dead. This, of course, is the scientific approach to the destruction of the second Death Star.
A very interesting tidbit about this is how the second Death Star would be even more dangerous to the forest moon of Endor when already destroyed. The hellstorm coming from space would not only destroy all living creatures, but also the many trees and plants within the forest moon.
However, canon is what shows us what is "true." In the current Star Wars canon, the Ewoks survived the destruction of the Death Star, as we not only saw them at the end of Return of the Jedi, but also at the end of Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker. The scene is very similar to the ending for Return of the Jedi, as we see several planets celebrating the defeat of the First Order.
During the galactic celebration, we see the forest moon of Endor, and we also see a now older Wicket next to another Ewok, his son Pommet, staring at the destruction of a Star Destroyer. It is great to know that our little beloved friends are alive, and that they also survived the tyrant rule of the First Order. The Ewoks are a very important part of Star Wars, as they spread a very important message, which is that even the smallest can make big changes.
One can understand that, in reality, the Ewoks and the forest moon of Endor would have been heavily affected by the falling debris from the second Death Star, not to mention the high amounts of radiation from the explosion entering Endor’s atmosphere. The radiation alone would have poisoned the planet, killing everything in it, like how the dinosaurs went extinct on our planet. I personally believe that the explosion of the second Death Star would have been enough to destroy every living creature on the forest moon of Endor.
Reality will always beat fiction, and it is scary how a beautiful moment from the original trilogy can be full of catastrophic deaths in real life. It is also very interesting to learn the wonders of space, and how things would actually occur in the Star Wars universe using real life physics. We cannot deny that, if Star Wars were to follow the laws of reality, most of our beloved characters would already be dead.
Yet some forget that Star Wars is not science fiction; Star Wars is a space fantasy story. So even if the Ewoks weren't actually dead, or if they were based on reality, they would always live on, in our memories.
Source(s): Space.com